Monday, December 06, 2010

I was just in Achacachi, and I have to say that the soul entered to my body, and my visit to this emblematic place has given me back the feeling of falling in love that I've always had with my country, and that the last time had an "aftertaste" bitter.

From Achacachi we have heard and seen horrifying scenes, first the brutal slaughter of dogs turned into opponents of the change process, and then burning the alleged thieves. Both events are just wild because are examples of brutal dehumanization, loss of the most basic compassion.

Achacachi is stigmatized, historically also carries a certain reputation for ferocity, so when last Wednesday I was getting closer to the town that is about to become a city, I did not expect anything but hostility.

Just coming in, I ran into the stadium, the place was the place of the brutal scenes described above. We saw with my traveling companion that into it had a turmoil and music, and stopped to investigate, entering the half-built stadium we have a very pleasant surprise, the place was full of youth, sport and joy.

Omasuyos school, was having a day of sport and dance on the synthetic turf. We could baptize it as Evocancha (Evos’s field). The scool was giving a demonstration of gymnastics, then one of capoeira, and finally a dance of the Chaco region, the Chacarera; the boys were crouching, the girls seemed andalusitans get out from a magazine, they were very good, and they knew it.

The event impressed me because it shows economic well-being was unimaginable a few decades in country region, just to mention that obviously all these young had good shoes, not to mention uniforms and dance costumes. I was impressed that they were not present with vernacular dances, but dances a little alien to the highlands, but of course, I have not missed it at all, in order to accounts they are young people who are not making any political statement, which simply is living his curiosity, his desire to do something different.

After walking the streets of Achacachi I have seen up to seven-story buildings, a lot of electronics stores of mobile phones, and in The Mayor House I have found that almost all staff have computers. Clear to me that the theme of "living well" it has no roots among the achacacheños, they want to live better, and exercise, within its capabilities, an unequivocal consumerism. It is less romantic, but it just is.

Of course, the interesting thing is that in Achacachi, where the Vice President has learned to "love and kill," youth sneezes the decolonization of “processs of change” and rather enthusiastically rescues its mestizo root, that is both, native and Spanish roots, and incidentally falls in love with the universal, starting with capoeira.